


Troubled Waters

by TetrodotoxinB



Series: Whumptober 2020 [24]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Day 24, Flashback, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD, Water, Waterboarding, Whumptober 2020, alternate prompt, brief nonsexual nudity, minor head injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27177808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: Jack needs help. Mac's there for him.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947493
Comments: 18
Kudos: 36
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Troubled Waters

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [aravenwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aravenwood/pseuds/aravenwood) for her extreme kindness in being willing to beta all of these whumptober fills! Especially so since she's also writing her own (amazing!) fics too! Please go check her out and give her some love!!!

After fighting tooth and nail all the way from the cell, Jack’s heart is beating a mile a minute. A few right hooks to the face has the room spinning, but his head only starts pounding for real when they strap him down. His head is below his feet and Jack knows what this table is for long before they pull the hood off. It’s hardly his first rodeo.

He tugs at the restraints around his wrists and ankles but there’s no give. All he succeeds in doing is further bruising his arms and catching a blow to the ribs with the demand that he “give it a rest.”

“You fucking give it a rest!” Jack screams. Nothing he does is going to change how this goes. They’re going to waterboard him until he passes out or dies. It’s what they did yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. 

The asshole behind Jack wraps the same musty towel over his face as yesterday and then the water starts. Jack tries not to breathe, even with the water running into his nose and filling his sinuses. He opens his mouth, desperate for the little air he can pull through the cloth but the water just comes faster, filling his mouth and choking him. 

Jack shouts, screams for help. The rational part of his brain knows that he’s not going to die like this, they won’t kill their only leverage. But the sensation of drowning is all-encompassing, severing all contact with any rational thought, and Jack knows only fear. He thrashes, spraining his wrist in the process but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but survival and Jack can’t possibly survive because he’s drowning. 

“Jack! _JACK!!”_

Jack thrashes harder because they can’t know his name. He’d never give them his name, never let them relate to him like that. But they know, they _know_ and he’s going to die.

Hands grip Jack by the shoulders, pulling his face out from under the water and Jack is powerless to resist, desperate for the reprieve. He turns his face toward whichever asshole is playing good cop today because he’s not proud. He just wants the water to stop. 

But this guy must be playing at something because the water stops altogether and then he’s pulled until he’s being held, his face against a dry shirt. Jack pushes at the guy because he might be desperate but he’s not _that_ desperate. 

“Easy, Jack, easy. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

Slowly, the world begins to resolve itself into something else and Jack realizes that he’s not there. _They’re_ not there. 

“Mac,” he gasps, as the reality of everything settles over him. 

“Yeah, buddy. It’s me. I got you,” Mac soothes, running his hand over Jack’s bare back. 

Despite Jack being reoriented to the here and now, it takes him a few minutes to gather his wits. He’s still crying, gasping for the air that easily fills his lungs rather than the water that his body expects. Mac just sits there in the bottom of the shower, his arms tight around Jack and murmuring reassurances like there’s nothing weird about holding a naked, soaking wet, grown man on the floor of his own shower. 

“You’re getting all wet,” Jack observes, sniffling and wiping his tears once he’s managed to sit up on his own. 

Mac laughs. “I think that ship has sailed, Jack. Besides, you’re the one who collapsed in the shower and hit his head.”

Jack reaches up and touches the side of his head, only realizing that it’s tender now that Mac’s mentioned it. “Well, shit. That hurts.”

Mac chuckles. “Yeah, it’s quite the knot. You probably ought to ice it.”

Jack groans as he pokes it and then pulls his hand away. “Can we, uh…”

Mac hops up, “Sure can.” And he helps Jack up and hands him a towel.

Once Jack’s got some shorts on, he makes his way to the living room where Mac’s sitting on the sofa in dry clothes and playing with some ugly mess of wires. 

“So, uh, what gave it away?” Jack asks, waving his hand in a vague sort of gesture.

Mac looks up like he’s been startled out of his thoughts. “Oh, uh, the screaming and the loud thud that sounded like a body hitting the floor were kind of a clue.”

“Ah,” Jack says with a nod. He flops down on the sofa next to Mac. Mac just keeps messing with the wires, twisting ends together this way and that, making something that Jack can’t even begin to imagine. “It hasn’t happened in a while,” he finally says. “Been a few years.”

“The op last week bring it up?” Mac asks, not looking up. Jack appreciates the false privacy, like Mac not watching this play out on Jack’s face is some sort of barrier between Jack and reality.

“Yeah, it’s- you don’t forget waterboarding,” Jack says. “Your body just holds onto the fear, no matter how long it’s been and the moment you get in that situation again it’s like you never left. Like you’ve been drowning the whole time and it ain’t never stopped. It’s been simmering, you know, just hiding out under the surface. And in the shower I went to wash my face and it was like the world fell out from under my feet.”

Mac nods. “Yeah, I know what that’s like.”

Jack knows he does. The things Murdoc did to him, there’s no forgetting that, no washing it away no matter how hard Mac tried those first few weeks. 

“You can still see it now, can’t you? Even now that you know where you are, even now that the panic attack is over. You can still see it. Like an image superimposed on reality,” Mac says quietly.

Jack nods. “Yeah, it’s exactly like that. Seeing two worlds at once. Can’t turn it off.”

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Mac says simply. 

“Yeah, Mac. Me too.”

Eventually Mac gets up and grabs the ice pack for Jack’s head and they order in some pizza. Their plans to go hang out at the gun range and practice up for their recertification are put on hold. They both know that no one having flashbacks needs a gun in their hands. Instead, they watch Die Hard and Die Hard With a Vengeance. Then Mac chooses Little Shop of Horrors and they sing along to all the numbers. 

It’s not perfect, but nothing in life is. The part that matters is that they’re not alone. After all, it’s what family is for.


End file.
